


Seeking Haven

by thesecondseal



Series: Acts of Reclamation [2]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Communication, Communication Failure, F/M, Friendship, Mages (Dragon Age), Mages and Templars, Original Character(s), Romantic Friendship, Slow Burn, Slow Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-28
Updated: 2015-04-02
Packaged: 2018-03-20 01:43:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3631917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesecondseal/pseuds/thesecondseal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Essa Trevelyan was never meant to be a mage. She charges into combat, blocks with the shield she no longer carries, and would still rather talk to horses and dogs than people. She doesn't trust Templars or mages--she's seen the worst faces of both and they were Trevelyan--but the Inquisition's inner circle seems to think she should decide who to go to for help in closing the Breach. Not that either group would find the new Inquisition an attractive ally at present. They will grow together, the reluctant Herald thinks on better days, she and the Inquisition. </p><p>But there are also days that Essa believes one will be the other's doom.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Warrior

**Author's Note:**

> Author's Note:
> 
>  
> 
> I’ve been meaning to write one of these for tumblr and AO3 for some time. Ever since I wrapped up all of my fanfiction actually. A little little note of explanation about my whirlwind year and my first foray into fanfiction. Welcome! This started out as silly fun and became a comprehensive self-paced writing course for me, so my process was a bt unfettered.
> 
> You’ll (probably) notice some shifts in perspective and theme as you read, maybe different narrative styles. I dabbled with first person for a while because one of my novels is in first person and I wanted practice. I did not write in proper chronology. I played around with silly tropes because they were fun, but also because characters (like people) aren’t static. They exist on sort of a spectrum of themselves and we never really know how they’ll behave when they’re tossed into situations they would never toss themselves in until they’re actually there. 
> 
> If sometimes things get bumpy, this is why. If you never find bumps then congratulations? your mind is particularly suited to follow the convolutions of my own. I can’t decide if I should offer you cookies or condolences. :D
> 
> At any rate. Have fun. I did. When I started my fan fiction is was with two goals
> 
>   1. explore the big topics (sex, addiction, intimacy, redemption, guilt) with the gravity they deserve
>   2. to have fun. 
> 

> 
> And while there are things I might would do better were I not finally and happily back to my original work *cough* edit, I would edit. *cough* I feel like I got so much out of this. (I learned to write smut!) 
> 
> I hope you have fun too. Happy Reading!  
> 

She was unconscious the first time he saw her, but Cullen knew enough about her by reputation not to be deceived by her stillness. Ester Trevelyan was one of the more infamous mages of the last decade; the tragic discovery of her affinity for fire had killed her new husband, torching an acre of forest before the inferno was silenced. Until that night, all accounts painted the youngest Trevelyan as a bit of a wastrel, spoiled by a doting father. She had trained from childhood in martial skills, but had been on no future path to speak of as she reached the age of her majority. When she fell in love with a half-Free Marcher—a former chevalier turned mercenary captain—she added her name to the long list of Diarmont Stanhope’s conquests.  She managed to nail the scoundrel down in marriage though, for all the good that it did either of them.

Cullen would have felt sorry for her, if not for the Templar blood on her hands. There was no proof, of course, and most thought the Graystone Mercenary Company responsible for the man’s death given that they also aided the new apostate in eluding Templar hands for over a year. That too was never confirmed, however, and the company had long disbanded.

Still, Mathieu Trevelyan had been found with his own knife in his throat and an intimate kill like that was most likely committed by someone with whom the victim was closely familiar.

Cullen had always suspected the murderer had been Mathieu's sister. A near decade of model behavior in Ostwick's Circle would never convince him otherwise. Seeing her awake and in battle had only encouraged the prejudices with which he still struggled. Ester Trevelyan was a dangerous woman. He took small comfort in that she had been even before she found her magic.

The mage that he had watched charge into battle could have been any young, hot-headed foot soldier eager to prove their worth. Cullen shook his head; the woman definitely did not have the combat instincts of a Tower mage. She was likely to get herself killed before she could cause too much trouble. He could only hope that too many lives wouldn’t be lost keeping her alive long enough to permanently seal the Breach.

They were calling her the Herald of Andraste, but only part of Cullen was willing to believe it. Which, he admitted, seemed to be more than she was comfortable with. It was to her credit that she faltered beneath the mantle so many had placed upon her shoulders. The Breach was stable, as was the corresponding mark on her hand. She spent her days wandering, taking odd jobs—some less trivial than others—and helping the people as she could. She killed demons and closed smaller rifts at every turn. In the short weeks since the Inquisition was formed, the Herald had spent most of that time out in the field with Cassandra, Solas, and Varric. She was surprisingly good company according to Cassandra. A little too fearless, reckless with her own life, but with strong protective instincts.

She took care of her party, spoke little and complained less, though Varric was particularly adept at drawing her out of her thoughts when she was tired enough that her defenses were low. She was considerate of the people whose adoration made her so apprehensive. When she was back from the Hinterlands she spent time with everyone in Haven, getting to know them, fostering friendships, forging tentative alliances. She was surprisingly charming, for all that she claimed to prefer the company of the four-legged folk. Cassandra had grown fonder of her than she wanted to admit.

“Not everyone,” Cullen commented as Cassandra finished her assessment of the Herald.

The Seeker glanced at him across the fire. It was a nice night. They had appropriated Varric’s favorite spot in the dwarf’s absence. He and the Herald were off with Solas and the Iron Bull. Essa seemed particularly taken with her newest recruit, the mercenary captain.

Cassandra frowned. “What do you mean?”

Cullen shrugged, rubbing at the tension he too often carried in his neck.

“She has not spoken with me,” he said in a carefully neutral tone.

It shouldn’t have bothered him that the mage seemed to go out of her way to avoid him, but it did. Cassandra didn’t appear to pick up on his hidden feelings. Cullen sighed in relief and stared up at the clouded sky.

“That will change soon,” she said, recapturing his attention. “She is not satisfied with her combat performance. I believe that she intends to join your men for drills.”

“She what?” He didn’t raise his voice with incredulity, but Cassandra smirked anyway.

From her soaring reputation, Cullen wouldn’t have thought that combat was a problem for the Herald.

“It isn’t,” Cassandra said.

Maker’s breath, he had spoken the thought aloud. Cassandra continued as if he weren’t trying to hide in his pauldrons.

“She is not a bad fighter,” Cassandra said. “Doesn’t mind getting knocked down or dirty. But she is unaccustomed to using her magic in combat. She would rather hit her enemies than launch fire at them, but she says it has been too long since she trained with sword and shield.”

In spite of himself, Cullen chuckled. 

“She’s a mage,” he said mildly. “She doesn’t need to train with a sword and shield. She needs to learn proper spellcasting for combat.”

Cassandra made a noncommittal sound.

“She has broken three staves in the last week,” she told him. “Thank the Maker she finally started blocking with them rather than her unprotected left arm. Of course, it took having an arrow lodged in her forearm. Solas healed the break, but she is still favoring it.”

Cullen sighed.

“She blocked an arrow,” he repeated slowly, just to clarify. “With her arm.”

“Yes,” Cassandra confirmed. “Her shield form is good, for all that she does not carry one.”

“It never occurred to her raise a barrier?” he asked. “Or to dodge?”

“The Herald does not dodge,” Cassandra replied dryly.  “If we are lucky, she hangs back with Varric and mimics the rogue with flame instead of quarrels.”

“She is going to get someone killed,” he muttered, glowering into the fire.

“Herself,” Cassandra agreed. “She pulled two despair demons off of me on the last rift she closed.  Said I looked like I needed a breath.”

The Seeker laughed softly. “Can you imagine?”

It had been a long time since anyone worried over Cassandra Pentaghast. Cullen was surprised to see that she did not take the concern as an insult.

“I cannot train her to stay out of the fighting,” Cullen said. “Though I can certainly give her a lecture about endangering the men and women who fight beside her.”

Cassandra shook her head. Essa needed no such lecture; she already felt too keenly the weight of each life depending on her.

“I think she will make a fine knight enchanter,” she told him. “But she and Vivienne…”

Cullen smiled slightly. “They are too much alike,” he agreed. “And too little.”

“Yes, and there will be time for that training once the Breach is properly closed. For now, teach her to use her staff rather that the shield she doesn’t carry. A quarterstaff is the most basic of weapons, she need not master it in order to save herself from broken bones. I’ll speak to the quartermaster about fashioning something she is less likely to break.”

“What about her magic?”

Cassandra threw up her hands. “If you can get her to talk about her skill, then you will be doing better than I, Commander.”

She shook her head.

“She wields flame like breath,” she said. “But she would rather channel power into her staff and use its attack. She is a most peculiar mage. “

She was a dangerous mage, Cullen thought, but he did not correct Cassandra.

“Send her to me when she returns,” he said instead. “I will see what she can be taught.”

“Thank you.”

Cassandra stared into the fire before them. “And be nice,” she ordered after a moment. “She is wary of Templars.”

Cullen covered his face with his hands and barely checked a groan. Already the woman had managed to land Cassandra as her champion.

“Maker, preserve us,” he said, dropping his hands in defeat. “I will do my best, Cassandra, but ‘nice’ does not come easily these days.”

“I know,” she said. “I am sorry. How are you feeling?”

“Better with distraction,” he assured her. “I will let you know after a few drills with our Herald whether or not I am grateful for this latest you’ve provided me.”

Cassandra laughed. “Our Herald is an interesting woman. You might like her.”

“I do not need to like her,” Cullen reminded her. “We need her to close the Breach.”

She nodded. “Then help me keep her alive.”


	2. Heart Ties

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A brusque exchange between the Herald and the Commander. A dear friend appears from Essa's past.

She had gotten soft in her years with the Circle. Essa lay in bed staring up at the patterns that the mark on her hand made on the cottage ceiling. She couldn’t remember ever being so tired. In the weeks since the Conclave her life had changed so many times that she could hardly keep up. First she was the villain, and everyone hated her.  But she closed the rift at the temple, bringing temporary stability to the area, and suddenly she became the hero. For a few brief, frightening days she had been utterly beloved by nearly all those gathered at Haven.

And then the “Herald of Andraste” gained momentum, became the face of the new Inquisition, and everything changed. Again.

For every person who worshipped the Herald, there was one who branded her heretic. Essa was wretchedly uncomfortable with the title; most days she was much more comfortable with “heretic.”  She certainly didn’t feel divinely sponsored, though there were quiet moments when she couldn’t help wondering why she alone had survived the explosion at the Conclave. It had to be for some greater purpose, and if it wasn’t, she was determined to make it so. Hundreds of lives that would have been better spared, but here she was instead.

Essa reminded herself every day that her guilt was wasted. That her survival had nothing to do with her. Whether it was chance or Andraste’s divine intervention, she had no choice in the matter.

“All you can do,” she told herself for the Maker knew how many thousandth time. “Is choose what you do with today.”

She rose with the familiar mantra filling her ears. Her voice sounded stronger than she felt, but that too was familiar. There had been plenty of mornings in the last eight years when it was all she could do to drag herself up to face the day. During her pregnancy Essa often couldn’t tell if it was misery or the understandable exhaustion that came from growing a child inside of her. She had still been in the clutches of that despair her first few months at the Circle. The persistent kindness of others had saved her, just as surely as had Prin, Erik, and the rest of Graystone Company. 

Without kindness, there would be no light in the darkness.

“And today,” she said, declaring her intentions as she did every morning. “Today I choose to learn. To fight better and smarter. To not endanger those lights who fight beside me.”

She grabbed the plain, heavy wooden quarterstaff Cassandra had given her the night before. The Seeker had—understandably—grown tired of Essa’s instincts dragging her into the heaviest fighting. She wasn’t geared for it, though she wanted to be. Even if Essa didn’t like it, she knew she couldn’t deny her magic and fight as a warrior. She often wondered, without anger or blame, if her magic might have manifested earlier and with less tragedy if she had not trained with sword and shield throughout her childhood. Most mages recounted some early childhood excitement or fear as the trigger for their becoming. Essa could rarely remember being afraid after the age of about three, and a quiet life of discipline and near solitude had kept her from too much excitement.

Until she met Diar.

Essa sighed and pushed the treasured face from her memory. The ravaging guilt and pain of loss had faded over the years to become the quiet ache of remorse, but she had not punished herself for it since her Harrowing. She had barely defeated the demons that awaited her in the Fade, and she had vowed to never give them such power ever again. If anything, she now looked back on the man she had killed with the same bittersweet sadness she held for the young woman she had been. Neither Diar nor his Essa would much recognize her now.

“We go forward,” Essa said into the stillness of the morning. “And we leave what we cannot carry.”

It was a saying among the apostates that the Graystones first took her to. Theirs was a wanderers’ life, not unlike the Dalish. In one of her more grief-stricken rages, Essa had asked how they lived as they did, and their wise woman had replied with those words. The creed was most often applied to possessions. Essa could have pretended the meaning was the only one, instead she begged the woman to teach her how to walk away. When she left Hope behind, she thought she had learned that lesson, but it had taken many years of dragging her ghosts and her grief up and down Ostwick Tower before she finally left most of them behind.

And she was still deciding how much of the rest to continue carrying.

Essa grabbed a piece of hardtack and cheese from her supplies. She had an apple left from a lucky forage in the Hinterlands, but if they didn’t go back out soon, she would have to start taking meals with the rest of Haven. She had made the mistake once of trying to grab breakfast with Varric, but her presence had disrupted the carefully orchestrated chaos of the morning meal. So many people watching her and whispering. So many people wanting the blessings they believed could come from simply touching her sleeve.

She pulled on her gloves and gathered her hair into short tail at the back of her neck. How they even recognized her was a mystery. She wasn’t particularly striking—brown hair, grey eyes, skin that had burned too easily after too much time indoors—and Josephine hadn’t had time yet to commission the portrait that Essa was certain the diplomat wanted. Essa was rarely in Haven, come to that.  She found great solace in the field, even if she was utterly exhausted by it, and mildly resentful of just how pampered her life had been at the Tower.

Essa munched on her rations as she wandered outside and into the predawn quiet of Haven. She nodded silently to night watch, waved at the kitchen boy who ran by, steps heavy and cheerful in a way that only the young seemed to possess. The casually called “good morning” suggested that Essa had not yet been recognized. She smiled and, as she came down the path nearing Varric’s favored fire, she caught the eye of a soldier who knelt stirring the coals to life.

“Good morning,” she said, as his smile answered her lingering grin. “Thought I was the only one mad enough to be awake willingly at this hour.”

His smile faded abruptly and Essa felt the usual brush of dread that accompanied most of her social interactions.

“Good morning, Herald,” Commander Cullen greeted her with respectful formality. “I didn't expect you along quite so early.”

Essa stared at him for a moment, hoping she didn’t look the fool. He was dressed in a plain uniform, the ubiquitous tunic and trousers that every Inquisition soldier wore. Without all the crimson, fur, and armor, she thought he looked naked. The word stuck in her head as he rose to his feet. Essa jerked her head sharply in an attempt to dislodge it.

“Good morning, Commander.”

She stepped back, placing her staff between them and planting her feet in an unconscious motion that confirmed for Cullen all of Cassandra’s concerns.

“It’s Essa, please,” she told him, tension gathering around too-wide eyes. “Or when you get particularly frustrated with me ‘Ester Donya Trevelyan’ seemed to pass well enough as a curse from the lips of my former instructors.”

She tried to give him a smile, but unlike the one that had been on her face when she first saw him, this one was forced. She stood uneasily as he built the fire up between them, fidgeting with the apple she carried in her off hand. He watched her hands, and something in his eyes suggested he wasn’t simply trying to get a glimpse of the mark. Essa fought every impulse not to hide her hands behind her back.

Cullen took a step toward her and she lost her grip on the fruit. Essa bobbled the apple, nearly knocked herself in the face with it. He caught it before it hit the ground.

“I’m sorry,” she said, taking another step away. “I—“

She shook her head as the words caught in her throat. Essa took a breath, tried again.

“Templars make me nervous,” she stated baldly, almost in challenge.

"I am no longer a templar,” he replied in a carefully even tone.

Her answering smile was mirthless, brittle on the edges.  “And I am no longer a warrior,” she returned. “But that doesn’t stop me from blocking with my shield arm.”

She was right and she was wrong, but it wasn’t Cullen’s duty to enlighten her, not in this.  He mimed tossing her the apple, waited for her to nod, and snapped it toward her face a little harder than necessary. She saw the attack quicker than he thought she would and brought the quarterstaff around smartly, knocking the apple back at him with a frown of indignation. It sailed over his head, disappearing into the dark.

“You owe me breakfast,” Essa snapped. “And an apple. Fresh fruit isn’t easy to come by.”

Had she been anyone else, he might have smiled a bit, made a joke to smooth things over or praised her for her reflexes. Her instincts were good; he might even be able to use them to get past a decade and a half of sword and shield training.

“Our supplies are limited,” he said instead, wondering even as the words left his mouth how she could set him on edge. “But I’m sure if the Herald asked for an apple, someone from the kitchens would find one for you.”

Her eyes narrowed, soft grey hardening to flint. “First of all, Commander,”

She laced so much venom into his title that Cullen nearly smirked. He raised one brow, but otherwise maintained a perfectly disciplined, perfectly professional expression.

“Yes, Herald?”

She drew in a ragged, angry breath, but the inhale didn’t calm her. She seemed angrier when she spoke again.

“I found that apple myself in the Hinterlands. It was the last of my stores. Secondly, I am no cossetted mage to burden those already struggling to feed the needy and keep a growing army on its feet. “

She sighed, anger fading on the exhale as quickly as it had come.  “This was a mistake,” she decided quietly. “I hope that I did not waste too much of your time, Commander.”

Before he could reply, Essa spun on her heel and quickly walked away. Cullen watched her turn toward the Chantry, the morning dark greedily swallowing her silhouette. He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. It was too early in the day for him to already be carrying tension there. What was it about her that set him so off balance that he had felt the need to do the same to her? There were plenty of people of whom he was not fond; he did not often stoop to antagonizing them. Of course, none of them were as dangerous as the mage with the Mark on her hand and throngs of devoted worshippers.

Cullen stared into the fire, ran one hand wearily through his hair as he went over in his mind their brief, tense conversation.  He had started their quarrel; he came to the realization with a small groan. She was uncomfortable around him, and apparently with reason as he had said nothing to make her comfortable in his presence, even after she admitted to being nervous around templars. It had taken courage to admit that to him. Cullen rubbed his eyes. There was no point in putting off the apology that he owed her.

He paused to assess the stability of the fire before starting off in the direction she had gone. He hoped his longer strides would catch up to her quickly, but soon found that she had not gone far. She stood in front of one of the torch posts, a solid wooden pillar near the mabari statue. Her glove was off; she was using the green light of the mark to read a piece of parchment tacked to the wood.

“Who posted this?” she asked as he walked up beside her.

There were tears in her voice. Cullen had a moment of guilt thinking that he had put them there. She tapped the parchment with one finger.

“Andraste’s Mabari,” she said impatiently. “Who posted this?”

Cullen didn’t know why the tavern song was so important to her, but he stepped up behind her, peering over her shoulder at the handwriting. There was a distinctive slant to the letters, the sharp execution of engineers and blacksmiths.

“Maybe Fin,” he guessed, not noticing how his breath warmed the side of her neck. “Young man from Ostwick. One of the journeymen smiths, helps with the horses.”

Essa dropped her quarterstaff. Years later she would still blame her suddenly slack grip discovering that Fin was at Haven. Her clumsiness was certainly not caused by anything as ridiculous as the Commander’s nearness. She took off for the stables at a run.

Cullen didn’t bother shouting after her, though he was disconcerted by how much he wanted to. She chipped at his composure in a way few ever had. Essa Trevelyan, he thought again, was a dangerous woman. He retrieved her abandoned staff and, too curious to do otherwise, followed her at a more reserved pace.

*

Cullen may have been uncertain as to whether or not Essa was sent by the Maker, but he suffered no such doubts about Fin Larkson. From the moment she found him in the stables dishing out the morning grain, Essa’s entire demeanor had changed. Cullen felt a bit guilty, though he couldn’t think of why he should, but as he watched her throw herself into the young man’s arms, Cullen thought that the Herald must have been incredibly lonely in her weeks at Haven.

“Oh, Fin, look at you!” she had exclaimed. “You beautiful creature!”

The blacksmith had laughed, taking one arm from around her long enough to wipe at her tears with a familiarity that surprised Cullen.

"I have missed you,” Fin told her earnestly.

Cullen didn’t know who they were to one another, but Fin’s blue eyes had been so filled with devotion that Cullen had turned away, quietly retreating to give their reunion what privacy could be found.  The sky had begun to lighten, and he could already hear the noises of the yard waking. Cullen was halfway to the training field when he heard her call after him.

“Commander!”

Even at distance, there had been undisguised joy in her voice. Cullen kept walking as if he didn’t hear her, though he heard the handful of steps as she ran after him.  Jim’s morning report saved him from what Cullen could only assume would have been an attempt at smoothing over their morning quarrel.  He still owed her an apology, and he wasn’t particularly pleased to find himself reluctant to give it while she was smiling.  Cassandra was not going to be pleased, but she would have to find someone else to train the mercurial mage. If their morning exchange was any indication, they needed to keep their interactions restricted to the war table

“She doesn’t trust templars,” he explained to Cassandra days later.

The Herald was back in the Hinterlands. She had gone to find horse master Dennet, and wound up scouting positions for watchtowers in the areas surrounding Redcliffe Farms. The tone of her reports suggested that Essa found the work enjoyable. She liked Dennet; he was “good people.” Cullen did not think those were words she used lightly or often.

“Neither do you,” Cassandra observed dryly.  “You will recall that you left the Order.”

“Yes,” Cullen sighed. “The Herald seems to forget that more than I do.”

“So you will not train her.”

Cullen shrugged. “She retracted her request,” he said calmly. “I thought it wise.”

Cassandra snorted and rolled her eyes at him. She did not speak aloud the exasperated “men!” but he heard her anyway.

“This was before she found her stable boy, was it not?”

Cullen blinked. “Stable boy?” he asked. “You mean the smith. Fin?”

“Yes, Fin.” Cassandra confirmed. “You know nothing of them?”

When he shrugged again. Cassandra laughed.

“I admire your diligence, Cullen. It takes considerable effort to remain so removed from our Herald. For most of the week, there has been nothing but talk about Essa’s stable boy. For the first time since we began, she was reluctant to leave for the field.  When she was here, the two were rarely apart unless she was meeting with us in the war room. The young man actually managed to convince her to join the recruits for evening meal before she left for Redcliffe Farms.

“Which you would know, Commander, if you had not been hiding in your tent.”

“Hiding?” Cullen scoffed. “If you call the mountain of paperwork I have spread across the cracked door perched over two sawhorses that I’m currently using as a desk, then yes, Cassandra. I was hiding.”

He was tired. Today was not one of Cullen’s better days. His sleep the night before had been fitful and filled with old memories turned nightmares. His head had been throbbing when he awoke, covers twisted, drenched in sweat, screams and blood still lingering in the haze over his eyes. His body had fought him at every turn, hands shaking, joints screaming as he forced his limbs through his morning exercises.

Cassandra patted his shoulder. “You should go soak in the springs,” she said. “The heat and minerals will help.”

When he opened his mouth to protest, her glare chased the words back behind his teeth.

“It is no more irresponsible than an evening in the tavern, Commander. A respite in which you have all but ordered the rest of us to periodically indulge. If relaxation for the its own value is a problem for you, then consider it an order. You need to take care of yourself. Too many of us rely upon you.”

He opened his mouth again to argue, then closed it back and sighed in defeat. “I’ll go soon,” he promised. “In a few days.”

It wouldn’t be so bad, he told himself. He could go late one evening, camp. Come back early the next morning. Rylen would keep everything running in the meantime.  Despite the weight of responsibilities for which he was incredibly grateful, part of him began looking forward to a night of solitude.

Cassandra must have read as much on his face.

“Good,” she said with pleased finality. “And since you are being uncommonly stubborn about the matter, I shall take pity on you.”

She leaned back , balancing her camp stool precariously on two legs until her shoulders hit the embankment behind them. Cullen raised an eyebrow in query.

“Let me tell you about Essa’s stable boy.”

“Why don’t you start,” Cullen suggested once he realized there was no stopping her. “With why you insist on calling a journeyman blacksmith a stable boy?”


	3. Honorable Intentions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whoops, my hand slipped and there's a hot spring. *grin*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to exhaustive but inconclusive research I have decided that Commander Rutherford's cloak is not actually a cloak, but his former Templar robes repurposed. I may or may not have spent time draping panels of fabric to see if this was realistic...

Cassandra’s cheerful gossip about Essa’s “stable boy” did not so much alleviate Cullen’s unindulged curiosity as make it worse. He was still puzzling over the sparse details of Fin and Essa’s relationship a week later when Cassandra brought him a horse and a pack of food and all but drove him out of Haven one fine afternoon.

Fin Larkson’s father had been the stable master and farrier for Bann Trevelyan for twenty years. The man had died when Fin was a child, but the Trevelyans had kept the boy on to tend the horses in his father’s place. Together, he and Essa had taken over the role of farrier, as Fin wasn’t quite big enough to do the work on his own. Cullen couldn’t imagine a lady of any noble house being permitted to spend time with a stable boy, much less trimming, filing, and shoeing horses’ hooves. It simply didn’t make any sense. Surely her mother—a proper lady by all reputation—would have protested. If she had, her remonstrations had amounted to naught. In Essa’s own words, Fin was her most beloved two-legged friend.

The turn of phrase still cut him. Cullen’s youngest sister, Rosalie, was teasingly called the family’s nature spirit. Growing up, she spent more time in the yard or out on the lake. She was a confidant of most of the birds and beast around their home. As young as she was, she was usually up before dawn and out wandering with her animal friends. Before he left for the order, Cullen had watched a falcon light upon her arm. She hadn’t winced when its talons sank into her skin, simply cooed at the raptor in a voice filled with love. He had given her his only pair of gloves when he left, hoping the leather would protect her from the adoration of the local wildlife.

Rosalie’s heart would have wasted to nothing trapped in a Circle Tower.

Cullen rubbed his neck as his horse picked her way along the trail, resolving to find some sort of civility with the Herald.  He still owed her an apology, and an apple, it seemed. He knew little enough of her. Just unkind gossip and rumor, mixed with a spotless Circle record and what his mind had inferred about the circumstances of her Becoming.  Anyone who spent more than fifteen minutes with her seemed to adore her. The reports of her kindnesses came in daily from the Hinterlands. She took time with people, though anyone could see that it wore on her. Cullen resigned himself to making amends when next he saw her. Maybe it wouldn’t be in the too distant future, and he would still be in better spirits for his forced relaxation.

The hot spring wasn’t close enough to Haven to be too convenient and the water was too thick with minerals to be drinkable.  The location itself was a well-guarded secret and they all knew better than to ask Leliana how she had come by her knowledge of it. A few hours ride east, followed by a short climb yielded a narrow pass, long obstructed by rock fall. The resulting recess was just large enough for a small camp and a short picket. The high walls curved inward, not touching, but reaching toward each other enough to trap a bit of the heat from the water that pooled, chest deep and pleasantly steaming, in a smooth depression along one side of the cove. The pool wasn’t much larger than a double bathing tub, but there was plenty enough space for two, Leliana told him with a smile, or one large warrior.

The sun was low on the horizon, throwing the mountain into cool shadow as Cullen’s mare turned onto the short, steep trail that led up to the cove. Any other day, he might have chafed at being so summarily dismissed from his duties. Today, he was simply grateful. Cullen was almost ashamed of how much he was looking forward to a long soak, a quiet meal, and a night sleeping warm on the pool’s edge without the noise of camp around him. He dismounted as he neared the narrowed opening of the pass, leading his horse with long reins as he preceded her into the shadowed cove.

“You promised to leave me alone,” a female voice grumbled as he rounded a curve of the mountain. “All night.”

A horse was already picketed in the thick grass that spread out from the bank carpeting the floor of the cove. Cullen stopped, hovering just out of the pool’s line of sight in order to afford its occupant some privacy.

“Who is there?” she was less certain now, but she didn’t sound afraid.

“My apologies,” Cullen called politely. “I wasn’t expecting anyone else to be here.”

He was going to have to continue into the cove if he was going to turn his horse around and head back down.

“Commander?”

He rounded the corner without thinking; more surprised than anything at hearing what was obviously that especially annoyed tone that the Herald seemed to reserve for him. What on earth was she doing here? She wasn’t due back at Haven until late the next day.

The fireball was small. It landed at his feet with a tightly controlled explosion that did damage only to the grass in front of his boots before mostly guttering out. Cullen stared at the ground before him incredulously before glancing sharply to the woman in the pool. Essa had both hands over her mouth, eyes wide in horror.

“I’m sorry!” she shouted, before Cullen could react.

Essa watched disapproval narrow his amber eyes. He thought she lacked control. She could see it in his face as he opened his lips to dismiss what he believed to be an accident. Essa was mortified.

“No,” she said shaking her head and all but leaping out of the water. “I promise it was intentional.”

She crossed the small distance between them in a rush, checking him for injury with frantic, stumbling movements, hands brushing across his arms in quick proprietary motions that he was too stunned to call to a halt.

“I’m sorry,” she said again, breathlessly patting out the smoldering grass and the toes of his boots with wet bare feet. “I’m such a shit. I’m sorry. I just--”

She trailed off, brain catching up with the rest of her.

Cullen stared down at the wet, naked mage a blush creeping up his neck as he hastily averted his eyes.

“Maker’s Breath, woman, have you no sense of modesty?” He wanted to bite back the words. They sounded harsh and judgmental even to his own ears, but Essa only laughed at both of them and angled herself a little away in the opposite direction of his gaze.

“Not instinctively,” she admitted sheepishly. “And to my mother’s great dismay, life couldn’t teach me one.”

Essa stood still, just on the edge of his vision. She didn’t retreat. She would have had to walk back in front of him to reach for either her clothes that were spread across the ground or the comparative concealment of the pool.

“Here,” he said, dropping his horse’s reins and pulling loose the long tails of his carefully draped cloak.  “Put this on.”

He thrust the garment toward her. Essa caught the heavy fur collar and shrugged into long crimson folds, winding the divided panels around her in some semblance of an adequate wrap.

“Thank you, Commander,” she said, in a mildly teasing voice. “I’m fairly covered. Your Chantry sensibilities are safe.”

He turned back to face her, a sarcastic quip poised on the tip of his tongue, but one look at her robbed him of words. She stood like a fighter, hips loose, feet poised lightly, heels barely on the ground.  Her leg muscles flexed, pale skin teasing through the trailing fabric. He glanced away, sorely tempted to drag his gaze up her body. To see the challenge he knew was gleaming in her eyes.

“I wouldn’t think you’d be so comfortable in a templar’s robe,” he said staring at a spot to the left of her head. Let her bristle on that, he thought.

“Former templar,” she reminded him blandly, but her shoulders tightened beneath the fur. Point for him. “It’s barely recognizable for what it was,” she mused lightly. “And you’ve added this lovely ruff too.”

It should have smelled like a dead wolf, but the pelts used had been expertly tanned and were obviously well cared for. Instead, the thick fur surrounded her with the scent of cedar, wisps of parchment, leather, and weapon oil. A hint of salt. Essa hid a growl of annoyance; she had been safer naked. She turned her back to him.

“I’m afraid that’s why I owe you an apology,” she said, charging forward with her intention. “I threw the ball to test you. To see if—“

She couldn’t bring herself to continue. She had meant it when she called herself a shit. There was no excuse for her actions. But he was clever, and his opinion of her low enough that he could infer the rest.

“To see if the rumors were true,” Cullen finished for her, the words that followed sounding like a cold recitation. “Yes, I’ve stopped taking lyrium. Though I will thank you to keep the information to yourself. Any concerns about my work, you may bring to me.”

“Yes, ser,” she muttered.

He watched the muscles in her back flex beneath wraps of crimson silk still clinging to damp skin. He cleared his throat. “You could have asked, you know.”

He sounded so reasonable that Essa rounded on him in temper, grey eyes flashing. Her hands landed squarely on her hips, pulling the twists of his cloak taut across her chest.

“And why would I believe that?” she asked in a much more even tone than her manner had him expecting. “You don’t answer to me, Commander. If anything I should answer to you.”

She stomped back toward the pool. She had already built a small campfire not far from the bank; it lay unlit. Cullen watched it catch fire, crackling beneath her stare.

 “Though I wish you luck with that one,” she added wryly.

He chuckled softly and followed her toward the fire, finally walking his poor restless mare into the cove.

“Just picket her with Geri,” Essa said, nodding toward where her horse stood contentedly nibbling the grass that grew thick in the warmth.

“There’s extra grain in my pack, if she’s hungry.”

“I had best be going,” Cullen said, trying not to scowl at her in confusion. This was hardly a social occasion. She acted as though he had come calling for tea. “I can return another time.”

She laughed at him. This was twice now. Cullen couldn’t remember anyone having such audacity, at least not since he was a bumbling recruit in training. It hadn’t taken long for him to learn enough that few dared to do so to his face.

“Stop glowering at me, Commander,” Essa said. “I’ll give you your robe back once it’s dry, but if Cassandra finally got you here for the healing properties of spring, it seems a shame for you to go wanting.”

She stepped closer to the fire.

“Also, I’m moderately afraid of her,” she admitted casually. “I will not be the reason you return when I’d wager what little I have that she told you not to come back until morning. We can share the space, or I’ll head back down and join the boys.”

“The boys?” he asked.

“You don’t think they went on into Haven and left the Herald unprotected do you?” She frowned into the flames. It was a common enough argument with them. One she always lost. “Varric, Blackwall, and Solas are camped just north of the climb. If you had kept going instead of turning up this trail, you’d have likely run over them.”

Well, that made him feel better at least. Cullen would have eventually gotten around to planning punishments for those foolish enough to leave the mage on her own….once he stopped being too easily distracted by the mage in question. Wait. He backtracked through her words.

“Share?”

Surely, she had gone mad. Already she had spoken more to him in the past few minutes than in all of their time working together.

“Yes,” she said, turning her back to the fire so that the wet silk could begin drying in the heat. “I acknowledge yours the greater claim to the pool, but I know that you will be ridiculously chivalrous and decline, so it’s my compromise. I will not stay if you choose to leave, and the care that Cassandra no doubt took to get you here will be utterly wasted by our mutual stubbornness.”

He said nothing, carefully weighing his options.

“Truly, Commander, I don’t mind packing up and heading down. The boys and I can break camp and be in Haven before midnight. I’m sure they would rather have their own space than stand watch for me to soak—“

She stopped talking, but it was too late.

“To soak what?” he asked too softly.


	4. Magefire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hot spring requires at LEAST one more chapter. *dreamy sigh*

“Ugh!” Essa growled at Cullen.

 She didn’t want his concern or his sympathy. Or worse, for him to see her for the colossal failure she had been feeling today.

Even with her back to him, Cullen could tell she was scowling.  He might have laughed at Essa’s ire did she not, mid snarl, shrug the collar of his robe down baring her shoulders and most of her back to his gaze. The bruises were extensive, deep purple and black mottled with alarming shades of red and blue. The largest spread across her shoulder blades; it was a wonder she didn’t have broken bones. Smaller welts peppered down her spine to vanish behind the drooping fur collar.

“Maker’s breath! I will get Solas.”

“I have been healed, Commander,” her weary words stopped him from charging down to find the other mage. “And likely tomorrow, I will be healed some more, but we have done all that we can today and sometimes the body just needs time and care.”

She pulled the collar back up, covering the bruises in silk and shadow, as she turned back to face him.

“What happened?” he demanded.

If she had already been healed, he hated to think of what her back had looked like beforehand. Essa glanced away, a blush blooming in her cheeks.

“I fell off of my horse,” she mumbled.

“Into a quarry?” he asked in mocking disbelief.

She continued as though he hadn’t spoken.

“I rolled down an embankment, if you must know.  A really high embankment.” She shuffled her feet a little. “And I may or may not have been stopped by a logging stand.”

She couldn’t see the concern on his face. The sun had passed behind the mountains, casting the cove into a heavy dimness for which she was grateful. Essa was still careful to look everywhere but at him.

“You’re lucky you weren’t killed!”

Fair enough. She had already been told so multiple times by the boys.

“But I wasn’t,” she said with sigh. “So you can go ahead and laugh. Even I did once I came to, and Solas had healed up the worst damage to the most tender flesh.”

He didn’t laugh. He was too overwhelmed by the by horrific image of the Herald lying broken at the bottom of cliff.

“I am a good rider,” she felt the need to tell him. “But two bears charged Geri and—“

The horse had bolted. Essa had leapt off rather than make him stay to fight the animals. Her dismount had been aided by a poorly timed swipe of claw, however. The poor boys had had to kill the beasts and collect her horse before they could make their way down to her. Only Varric had been certain she wasn’t dead.

Cullen shook his head in dark amazement. The Herald of Andraste had nearly been killed by a pair of charging bears.

“Can you please not tell anyone about this?”

He sighed. “Al’right.”

He did try—again—to leave her solitary use of the pool. Essa refused.

“We are wasting valuable recuperation time by arguing,” she pointed out. “It’s dark anyway. I promise I can resist the lure of your naked body, Commander, and I’ll not ogle you anymore than you’ve ogled me.”

Even as Cullen flushed she grinned at him, and he realized that it was first time Essa had ever truly smiled in his direction. Sweet Andraste, if she ever smiled at Josephine that way, the ambassador would have her sitting for portraits. Hers would be the literal face of the Inquisition whether she liked it or not. The way her eyes lit and chased the shadows from her face was a kind of miracle. It was no wonder “the boys” followed her around like pups.

“You should smile more,” he said, before he could stop himself.

Cullen winced at his rare display of impetuousness, expecting a rebuttal that never came. He turned from her and the fire, took the moments required to tend to his mare as a chance quiet his mind. Essa, he found, had distracted him from the tension in his body, the relentless pounding at his temples.

“I should,” Essa agreed in late reply. “Fin is Maker-sent.”

“You look good together,” Cullen offered, not turning from his task.

There was a shocked laugh, then a curse, followed by a splash. Cullen spun toward the pool to find Essa sputtering as she dragged herself upright in the water.

“Andraste’s Mabari, Commander!” Essa swore at him, slicking her dark hair back out of her face. “Do not say that again.”

She winced as she settled against the edge of the pool. Cullen kept his mouth shut and noticed that his cloak was spread carefully over her bedroll. Essa glared at him anyway.

“I got tired of waiting,” she said. “Besides your back was turned. I had no idea you were going to try to kill me while I was sneaking back into the water.”

She leaned her head back against the saddle blanket she had been using as a pillow when he first arrived.

“Fin is eleven years younger than I am,” she explained, closing her eyes with a sigh.

“You look much closer in age than that,” he felt the need to defend his assumption.

“Thank you, I think,” she returned, body relaxing in the water. “But I am much closer to your age, Commander, if not right at it. In many ways my life has been very easy, and Fin’s has not.”

“He is like a bro-“ she stumbled over the word. “He is my family. One of a very small number of people whom I have had the privilege of loving for most of my life.”

Her voice had grown soft with sadness. She cleared her throat. “Are you coming in or not?” she demanded crossly.

Cullen watched the emotions tumble across her face. She was by turns kind and churlish, defensive and startlingly vulnerable. She insulted and apologized with equal facility, but he was beginning to doubt that there was any cruelness in her.

And she made his head hurt in ways that had nothing to do with withdrawal.

“I am,” he conceded with as much good humor as he could muster. “Don’t rush me, woman.”

She smiled at the near friendly jab and tried not to listen to every rustle and clank as he removed his armor and clothes.

“Are you blushing, Commander?”

She knew she was, so it seemed only fair.

When he didn’t answer, Essa continued guilelessly. “I have to confess that I rather like you this way. You’re easier to talk to when you’re flustered.”

Easier to talk to? He was so surprised that he nearly kicked one of his boots into her horse.

“You have never once acted as if you were intimidated by me,” he pointed out.

Cullen placed both feet firmly on the ground and took a fortifying moment to retrieve his boot and arrange his armor neatly against the cove wall.

“Haven’t I?” she asked. “Or do you think I’m this surly with everyone?”

Cullen very wisely didn’t answer. He finished removing his clothes and stood for a moment disconcerted by how _not_ uncomfortable he was standing naked in the night with her beneath the stars. He should have been. He was Chantry raised and templar trained for Andraste’s sake. He was hardly one for casual nudity, but Essa’s blatant disregard for her own made anything more seem foolish.

“I’m not friendly by nature,” she groused at him, eyes still closed. “But most people—well, aside from select members of House Trevelyan and the Chantry—find me pleasant enough. You on the other hand…”

“Essa.”

She stopped, ears suddenly filled with the sound of her name on his lips. Was it the first time he had said it? She thought it might be. And, Andraste’s Mabari, why did that matter?

“Yes?” she asked quietly.

“Stop talking, please. If I admit that this newfound candor of yours is unsettling, will you let me into the pool with some pretense of dignity?”

“Yes,” she mumbled contritely.

The water level rose as he joined her in the pool. Essa kept her eyes—and her mouth—closed. It wasn’t fair to badger him. The man had come up there looking for healing and for solitude; the least she could do was see that he got both. A groan escaped him as he settled back into healing warmth of the pool. Essa staunchly ignored the way the sound seemed to travel through the hot water and press against her skin. She dragged her fingers slowly through the water, stirring into the gentle current what meager healing magic she had. Life did not come as easily to her as death, but she gave what she could when the opportunity arose.

“Essa?”

She opened her eyes to find him staring across the small space. Thank the Maker, the sun had fully set. The moon had not yet risen high enough over the mountains, but stars glittered cold and silver in the narrow space between the cove’s walls. Firelight tangled—warm and golden—with the green luminescence from the mark on her hand. Cullen’s eyes did not appear his own as they met hers across the dark face of the water.

“It’s not much,” she said in apology. The words felt thick in her throat. “I’m not skilled at healing, I’m even worse during combat, but in the quiet I can manage a balm. It will ease your muscles, hopefully take the edge off of your headache.”

“You’re a dangerous woman, Essa Trevelyan,” he sat back with a sigh, closed his eyes as the water mixed with her magic and dulled the ever-present aches.

She heard “mage” instead of “woman,” and thus misunderstood him.

“I know,” she sighed. “I was a damned fine warrior though. It would have taken me a few years, but I would have worked my way through the Grand Tourney.”

She lay back again, eyes closed, watching the different colors of light dance against her eyelids. “But I’m good with fire,” she confessed quietly.

She had worked hard to make it so. Never again would whatever blazed at the heart of her harm someone without her intention.

“When I completed my Harrowing, the First Enchanter said he was glad. That it would have been a shame to waste my gift. That I was the strongest fire mage he ever knew.”

She spoke the words like a curse. Cullen knew too well self-hatred when he heard it.

“That’s why,” Cullen interjected awkwardly. “Why I don’t—didn’t like you, I mean.”

She let him flounder for words, and he didn’t blame her. He tried to pull the truth together to give it to her.

“It is difficult to trust a mage with such power,” he explained carefully. “And you are the first I have met to pursue mastery so relentlessly all the while wanting nothing to do with magic.”

He sighed, ran dripping hands through his blonde hair and concentrated on the slow slide of the water down his face and neck.  Already he was too comfortable with her. Was it really only hours ago that he thought civility between them was the best he could manage? There was a quality to her presence, the lure and comfort of a warm hearth. He wondered what demons she had faced in the Fade.

“Mages rarely ask for the bonds of magic,” Essa said.

“Maybe not initially,” he replied. “But that has not stopped them from turning those bonds into weapons to use against others.”

“Slavery places chains on all of us, Commander.  Where there is fear, there can be no peace.”

“Sometimes that fear is understandable,” he said. “People are too often greedy and corrupt. Give such a person the power of the Fade and….”

He let his sentence fall, not wanting to start an argument about mage and templar relations. Not when they had somehow been getting along so well. Not when his body was just beginning to let go of weeks’ worth of tension and pain.

“Anyway,” he continued. “I am sorry. I meant to apologize to you that morning. I was coming to find you when I saw you reading the song.”

Essa nodded, though he didn’t see her.

“We’ll call it quits then,” she decided. “But I can’t promise to always be at ease around you. No matter how “former,” Commander, you were still a templar.”

He had seen the good and the bad of the Order, and more of the latter than most. “I thought that Ostwick was a quiet Circle. Were your experiences there so terrible?”

He sounded as if he genuinely wanted to know. Essa wished she could tell him.

“The man you are now,” she asked instead. “Is this the man you always were? Is this the templar you always were?”

“No,” he said curtly. “And Leliana has my file if ever you—“

“Stop,” she said, cutting him off. “This isn’t about judging you, Commander. Of all the Maker’s children, I have no such right. But I was raised within a templar family, and there are worse than you. Even before I became mage, I did not hold them in high regard. I pitied the mages who fell under their ‘care’ and I was warrior enough, even as a child, to recognize when a man wasn’t good at cleaning blood from his hands.”

There wasn’t much he could say to that, though he tried hard to think of something. Essa’s foot bumped his knee and Cullen jolted.

“Sorry…sorry,” she pulled her leg back and held up her hands as if trying to calm a startled animal. “Bum knee. I thought there was a tiny bit of space on the side of you that I could stretch out my leg.”

“Spooked me is all,” he said gruffly. “Go ahead. I can shift to give you some room.”

She slowly stretched her foot out and was proud of herself for not jerking away when Cullen caught it in his hand. His fingers were cool, calluses rough as his fingers pressed against her arch and guided her foot to the ledge beside him.

“There.” He let go as she settled, shifting away as she lengthened her other leg out to cross her feet at the ankles. “No harm done.”

“Your turn,” Essa said, with just a hint of challenge. “If my short legs were stiff, yours must be miserable.”

He moved with less hesitancy than she had, his feet finding the ledge beside her without any trouble.  He swept his toes across a particularly smooth stone—once, then again—enjoying the pleasant texture.

“That’s my hip,” Essa choked on a laugh, moving lightning quick to catch his toes before he could retreat in utter disgrace.

“Your hip feels like a rock,” he accused defensively, wanting to hide even as the words left his mouth. 

“A very smooth rock,” he added helplessly, feeling at once like a bumbling adolescent.

Josephine was right. He needed to avoid—at all possible cost—speaking with women, especially noblewomen.

Essa laughed again, louder this time.  The rich sound bounced off the stone surrounding them and danced across the water. For a moment, Cullen didn’t care about his humiliation; her joy more than made up for his suffering.

“I will take that as a compliment,” she tweaked his toes before gently depositing his foot a safe distance from her. “I think that they are still too soft from too many years of Tower life, but we can’t all have Cassandra’s natural constitution. Some of us have to work for it.”

It was his turn to laugh. The sound warmed her. Confirmed her deeply held suspicions and Fin’s insistence that the Commander was a good man. A laugh, she decided, should not be able to do such a thing.

“No one but Cassandra has Cassandra’s natural constitution,” Cullen said. “But if you are worried, perhaps we should revisit—without despoiling fruit—the subject of your training.”

“I would like that,” Essa said, not quite covering a yawn. “After dinner maybe. Now that we’re basically comfortable, I plan on soaking until I fall asleep. When I wake up, I’ll worry about what in the void I’m going to wear to dinner.”

“To dinner?”

He couldn’t imagine that scrounging grub around the campfire required a special wardrobe, much less that Essa was the type of woman to require one.

“All my clothes are wet,” she said sleepily. “I washed them when I got here. I planned on dining in exactly what I am now wearing and sleeping naked under the stars.”

She yawned again.

“Just wear my robe,” he said, more than a little proud that the offer sounded merely considerate.

“Really?” she asked, mirth tinging the word as she drew out the syllables knowingly.

“Yes, really.”

Cullen stretched his arms out before him, feeling the muscles lengthen and release. His movements sent gentle eddies of current through the pool. Essa’s brow furrowed, but she didn’t move.

“Then the next time Leliana swears that I am a staid traditionalist for keeping the thing around,” Cullen continued casually. “I will remember our Herald eating camp rations beneath the starlight wearing nothing but a former templar’s robe.”

Essa snapped up to gape at him, but Cullen’s head was tilted back against the edge of the pool. His eyes were closed, but there was a supremely satisfied smirk on the Commander’s lips.

 _Point to you_ , Essa thought, hiding a laugh. _And challenge accepted._


	5. Apostate

For a moment, Essa couldn’t remember where she was. It had become a common enough occurrence growing up and again since the Conclave. Only while at the Tower should she have slept every night in the same too comfortable bed. She had always wandered as a child, sneaking out to sleep in her mother’s garden or down to the stable. She liked falling asleep and waking up outside, though she was still getting used to doing so in a tent and in the company of others. Except for the year she spent on the run from templars, she was unaccustomed to living in such close quarters with other people. It didn’t help that she always came awake slowly, waiting for the sounds of her companions stirring to make their way into her tent. She was usually the last one awake, though not the last one up. Varric always took his sweet time, griping his way into the morning.

But not this morning.

This morning there was only the soft sounds of a pair of horses and the deep even breathing of the man next to her. Essa lay quietly on her stomach, listening for every tiny sound. The fire had died sometime in the night; the air in the cove was warm enough that they had not worried about reviving it, but her back was cool in the morning air. She could feel the faint edges of his breath on her face. Essa reached up carefully between them to rub her eyes. Andraste’s Mabari! How long had they slept? Not enough, she thought in wonder. Essa took a deep breath and opened her eyes

To meet the warm tawny gaze so close to her own.

“Good morning,” she whispered, feeling heat blossom in her face.

He was blushing too beneath the shadow of a day and a night’s worth of beard scruff.

“Good—“ he cleared his throat. “Good morning.”

Essa smiled and tucked a wayward lock of hair behind one ear as she moved her hand away from her face. Cullen was on his side facing her, head propped up on one arm. He watched her closely, like she was an objective he was trying to solve. And he would, she thought suddenly, with a frisson of fear running down her too exposed spine. He was too clever not to.

“Your back looks better,” he said, scrutinizing her bruises with what he thought was surely an admirable detachment.

They had soaked in the hot spring off and on over the course of the night, dozing comfortably in and out of a dozen conversations. They had taken a late meal by the fire before it died and Cullen knew that the simple shared meal would keep as one of his favorite memories. Essa had called his bluff, a friendly taunt in her eyes as she sat cross-legged on her bedroll wearing nothing but the carefully draped folds of his coat. When they had eventually crawled out of the pool for good, Cullen had declined her laughing challenge to sleep mother naked beneath the stars. He still didn’t know if she had slept in his surcoat to taunt him or in deference to his “Chantry sensibilities.”

She had slept on her stomach, back still too sore for anything else, and Cullen had placed his bedroll beside her because the cove was only so large or some such practical nonsense that they had discussed between the two of them. They had lain shoulder to shoulder and without touching, talking until their words lulled them to sleep.

“Commander?” Essa recalled his attention with a smirk on her lips.  He smiled a half smile, a slow quirk of the scar on his upper lip.

“I’m sorry,” Cullen said, eyes shining with half-repressed merriment. “Your dimples are very becoming.”

Essa flushed scarlet, hands moving immediately to cover the depressions on either side of the base of her spine.

“I think there’s some scoundrel in you,” she accused when he chuckled.

“Maybe,” he agreed thoughtfully. “But if so, it seems to have been adequately repressed most of my life.”

Essa’s smile turned into a sigh. “We should get back to real life, huh?”

Never in her wildest imagining had she thought to pass a night like the one before. She knew that she would never see its like again.

“We should.” He didn’t sound as if he were in any great hurry either.

“Um…” Essa cleared her throat once. Twice.

“I’ve never done this before,” she confessed it as though a crime. “Spent the whole night with someone, I mean.”

Cullen frowned. “Didn’t you have a roommate at the Tower?”

It was customary. Fledgling and apprentice mages often slept in bunkrooms or dormitories. Mages did not get rooms of their own until they made enchanter, and some not even then depending on how crowded the Tower was.

Essa shook her head slightly, face pressing into the fur of his collar.

“When I first joined the Circle I was given a small cell—room—of my own so that my classmates didn’t drive me crazy. That was the official reason, but I’m pretty sure they were terrified I would have a nightmare and burn up all the baby mages in their sleep.” She sat up suddenly; Cullen turned away from the teasing glimpses of her body as she hurriedly got to her feet.  “But that’s past,” she said. “I—“

She stopped speaking, he heard rough shifts of fabric and leather as she struggled into her clothes and quickly packed up her gear.

“I can’t promise that we will ever get along so well again,” Essa told him, changing the subject.

Cullen nearly laughed. “I would not have so presumed.”

He watched from his bedroll as she stepped past him to feed the horses handfuls of grain. She murmured softly to Geri as she tacked him up, something that sounded like gratitude and promises for fresh water waiting down the mountain. She was right, he thought with a checked sigh. Time to get to work.

Cullen had his back to her as he began the careful layering process of dressing. Leather jacket over cotton tunic, boots and greaves over the calves of his leather pants. He was just finishing buckling on his heavier armor when Essa spoke much too close to his elbow. He flinched even as her hand landed warm and solid through the leather of his jacket.

“You should know that last night was a gift for me. I don’t believe I have felt so at ease in my own skin since—“

Since she had first felt fire bloom beneath it. Cullen stared down at her and the words fled as she quickly pulled away. She didn’t know why she had thought to give them to him.

“May I?” Essa held his surcoat with both hands. She lifted it slightly toward him.

Cullen lowered his head slowly, not sure if he was trying not to startle her or himself. She settled the fur on his shoulders, the attached silk sliding down around him. Before he could unbend, she placed a gentle kiss on his cheek.

“Thank you,” she said with a self-deprecating smile. “Maybe you can remember that I’m not a total shit in the days to come.”

“You must promise me the same,” he replied.

Was that his voice? It was too low, too intimate, he thought as he straightened in a rush. He should have been putting space between them, he chided himself. He could sense that she was trying to do the same.

Essa nodded and a lock of hair fell forward in front of one eye. Cullen reached for it, gloved fingers tucking the lock behind her ear as she had done earlier.

“I am sorry that you were so isolated in your Circle,” he told her. “That isn’t how they are supposed to work. A proper Circle is about community as much as--”

“Confinement?” she finished for him, and he sensed the deep conflict that lay, unspoken between them.

Mages and templars were at war, and he should not have needed the gentle reminder. Even if he was no longer a templar, and she was easily the least mage-like enchanter he had ever known.

Essa smiled a little sadly as if she could read his thoughts in the set of his jaw.

“They couldn’t help not trusting me,” she said. “I was very late to my magic, and a wild apostate besides. I eluded the templars for a year before I knocked on the Circle’s door of my own volition.” She looked up at him, eyes meeting his through the encroaching light of dawn. “And here I am, apostate again. You probably shouldn’t trust me either.”

“All mages are apostates now,” he reminded her.

“Yes, Commander, but I am finding that this time I like the freedom. I will not relinquish it again.”


	6. Circles

Essa wasted little time leaving the cove. The sun was rising and in the growing light, she looked back on the night before with increasing disconcertion. What had she been thinking? She berated herself down the trail, giving Geri his head and letting the horse charge down the incline with more speed than care for her own comfort. Every jarring step made her back throb with pain. Essa reread every moment in her mind as they made their way to the boys' camp. Every line of teasing, flirting banter. Every earnest explanation that Cullen had given in response to her endless and sometimes intrusive questions. For his part, Cullen had only asked about her childhood. Until his question about her life at the Tower, he had not asked her anything about her life since her magic manifest.

She wondered how extensive and accurate Leliana’s records were. She knew she shouldn’t have—the spymaster knew everything about everyone, Essa was certain of it—but she wondered anyway. Of course, Cullen might not have needed the no doubt exhaustive file; he had no doubt seen her wanted poster. Ester Donya Trevelyan “wanted apostate” “suspected maleficarum” “possible abomination.”  The templars would have killed her if they had found her, no questions asked. And Essa knew enough about the commander to be certain that if their paths had crossed then he wouldn’t have hesitated as long as some others.

“Hey, Mirabelle,” the nickname slowly cut through Essa’s haze. When she met him, Varric had claimed the name was taken, but since then, he seemed to have decided it suited Essa more than his crossbow. He had given her no explanation. “You with us?”

Essa looked down to see the dwarf holding Geri’s reins. Her horse had stopped walking—obviously having more sense than she did—or at any rate paying better attention. She wasn’t sure how long they had been standing there, but from his tone, she doubted it was the first time Varric had greeted her.

“Deep thoughts,” she apologized. “Are we ready then?”

“Nearly,” Solas replied. “I would like to look at your back again before we get underway.”

They had already broken camp; if they left then they would reach Haven in time for the last part of breakfast.

“It’s fine,” Essa said, “A night in the pool did wonders. Just toss me an elfroot potion and let’s get moving. I know that we are all ready to get back.”

They needed to be well underway if there was to be any hope of Cullen not overtaking them on the trail.  She didn’t really know what last night had been, but it was theirs, and even if he had more professional reasons, Essa was willing to bet that Cullen wouldn’t want misinterpretations and rumors bandied about Haven any more than she did.

“Al’right,” Solas agreed.

The elf’s eyes searched hers in a way that made her wary. Her father used to tell Essa that she had old eyes. She hadn't believed him, but Solas made her feel painfully young and ignorant, as if she were a bumbling apprentice. She was thankful that he did not mind her questions. He spoke often of the Fade and of spirits. She was slowly learning to sense them without fear or judgement. Had someone been telling him her secrets from the Fade? She wondered, but she was too afraid to ask.

Essa fretted the entire way back to Haven. The boys knew her well enough by now to let her brood, even Varric who normally tried to draw her out of her solitude. Their mission had been successful, and they had done some good work for folks that needed it while they were out. They chalked her silence up to almost dying and finally getting a night to herself. The mantle of Herald couldn’t be a light one, especially for a mage. She would feel better when she got back to her stable boy.

She went to the forge first, presumably to drop off some crafting materials with Harritt. The master smith was still looking for the right combination to keep her from breaking staves during combat.

“Larkson, help the Herald with her horses,” Harritt ordered Fin.

The kindness behind the gruff order didn’t fool anyone. Essa almost hugged him. She was grinning as Fin followed her to the stable. The boys had learned to leave the horses to her and head to whatever meal was closest. She claimed the work soothed her, and she appreciated the excuse to not join them in the crowded mess tents. She ignored her rumbling stomach as she and Fin untacked and brushed down the horses.

“I have missed you,” Essa said as they carried buckets of water to each stall.

There was a familiar routine between the pair. One that transcended age, class, and gender differences.

“You weren’t gone a week,” Fin pointed out teasingly.

“You know I wasn’t talking about this past week,” she said, kicking lightly at his shin. “Andraste’s Mabari, you’re still a brat Fin.”

She hung the last bucket beside Geri’s feed trough, promising the Forder a treat later. Fin knew he would find her sleeping in the horse’s stall that night.

“How did it go?” he asked as they wandered through the village. It was the beginning of a comfortable routine, him walking her to the Chantry doors.

“Good,” Essa said with a nod. “Once the Commander’s men get those watchtowers built, the Inquisition will have some fine horses. Dennet is good folk. You’ll like him. He will also keep you from taking on too many duties at the stable.”

She elbowed him and Fin laughed. “You managed to recruit the man?” he asked.

Everyone knew that Dennet was retired. Everyone it seemed but Essa.

“You make it sound as though I conscripted him,” she complained. “I asked. He said yes.”

Fin shook his head. She still didn’t know the effect she had on people. He would have to tell her soon; it would hurt her to learn too late how strong a loyalty she commanded.

“You can be a hard woman to say no to.”

She laughed and he realized then how difficult the conversation would be.

“Fin Larkson, you have been arguing with me since the day we met.”

He had been born too stubborn. His mother had told him so for seven years and from the other side of a belt until Essa caught her one cold spring morning. Every now and then he wondered where she had gone, but his father hadn’t missed her and that was more than Fin needed to reassure him that they were better off without her.

“Yes, well, we both know I haven’t a bit of sense in my head.”

He grinned at her and she leaned to bop his shoulder with her head in companionable affection. They were laughing as she stopped to turn in requisitions. Essa waved to the quartermaster and called good morning to those gathered near the tent. Fin watched dour faces light with smiles.

“You seem to be in an awfully good mood for someone carrying injuries I can’t see,” Fin commented as they crossed the path to the Chantry.

Essa blanched. “I’m still a bit stiff,” she admitted. “Don’t ask. I’ll see the healers when I’m done at the war table.”

The Chantry doors opened and Essa was spared the curious look in her friend’s eyes.

“We’re going to talk about this later,” he warned her, dropping a kiss on her forehead.

Essa shook her head. It didn’t matter if he meant her injuries or her good mood. “No we aren’t,” she replied.

He smirked at her and she sighed.

“Fine,” she said, laughing. “But much later, like after I’ve closed the Breach later.”

“How about after dinner by the fire later?” he countered.

“I hate you,” she groused.

Fin was laughing as they parted ways.  Essa watched the morning glint in his red hair as he sauntered off. She didn’t believe much—heretic that she was—but Essa knew that Andraste had sent Fin back to her. He had arrived just when she most needed someone she could trust. And after so many years the fact that things were still warm and easy between them was nothing short of the Maker’s work. There were moments when she worried about how her life circled endlessly around the same wavering point, but Fin did not belong to those moments.

Essa was grinning as she walked into the war council.

“Good morning,” Leliana greeted her as she stepped into the room. “My, don’t we look well rested?”

“Thank you,” Essa said, only to hear the same words twinned with hers.

Cullen’s voice was too close to her back. Essa realized too late that Leliana’s comment was not directed at her, but at the commander arriving just behind her. She wanted to hide her face in her hands, but already she feared the blush on her neck had been noticed by the spymaster.

“Sorry,” she said, stepping quickly to the side to let him pass. “I thought you meant me.”

Leliana smiled.

“She could certainly have included you,” Josephine said glancing at Essa over her notes. “I don’t believe any of us have seen that particular depth of happiness on your face before, Herald.”

Essa studiously avoided looking at Cullen as he made his way past her to the far side of the war table.  

“It was a good mission,” she said, as if that were all the explanation needed. “Once those watchtowers are built, Dennet will bring the horses.”

She heard a small sound as Cullen paused to place something on the table near the stack of parchment Josephine seemed to always have waiting for her.

“I marked the positions,” Essa said, stepping up to her usual spot at the table. She produced a small map from her jacket pocket and unfolded it on the table. “I trust everyone is well.”

“Quite well,” Josephine answered. “Dennet will be joining us?”

Essa nodded, but Cassandra stepped up beside her before Essa could offer further reply. When the Seeker saw the small red apple beside Essa’s dreaded paperwork, she snorted with barely checked laughter.

“You will finally begin combat drills then,” she said, drawing Essa’s gaze to the fruit.

As a peace offering, the apple was the perfect jest, something to lighten the weight of a weeks’ old grudge, but after the night that they had shared the gift felt shockingly intimate. They had woken next to one another only hours before, and now he had brought her breakfast.

Essa jerked her head in an awkward nod, eyes never quite connecting with his.

“Yes, Cassandra,” she affirmed. “I think it’s time I stopped blocking with my shield arm, don’t you?”

“Or taking on a half dozen bears,” Leliana added.

Essa groaned. “I am going to set that dwarf’s shoes on fire.”

“I’m afraid it’s a little late for that,” the spymaster said with a smile. “Varric has spun the tale rather in your favor. We assume that your mount’s panic was less founded and that the bears were neither so large nor so numerous.”

Essa nodded. “There were only two, and Geri needs some combat training of his own. I doubt the fall was much exaggerated,” she said with a sigh of defeat. “It did nearly kill me.”

“Then we are grateful Andraste protected you,” Leliana said softly. “Again.”

Essa wanted to argue, but found she could not. Against all reason, she was beginning to doubt that her continued survival was anything less than divine. She had not yet decided if it was divine punishment or if the Maker and his Bride simply had a cruel sense of humor. She reached for the apple.

“Thank you, Commander,” she said, turning from the faith she saw in Leliana’s eyes. “I haven’t had a chance to grab breakfast.”

Which he damn well knew, she realized as he finally caught her gaze. His expression was perfectly neutral, but for less than a heartbeat, his eyes were warm with repressed laughter. The man was teasing her. In front of everyone!

Essa pulled a knife from her belt and with a quick, deft movement neatly sliced the apple in half.

“You either, I suspect.”

She tossed half to him, and he caught it, lips quirking up in smirk that he quickly hid. He gave her a little nod.  Her point then.

“Come by the yard this afternoon if you’ve time,” he said. “We can get started on some basic combat tactics.”

“Not until she has seen a healer,” Cassandra interjected. “Really, Commander. She’s walking wounded.”

Essa must have been moving more stiffly than she thought. The Seeker leveled a stern look at her.

“I’ve half a mind to take you to spring,” she threatened. “The soak might do you good.”

 Josie and Leliana were talking missions and strategy and some lord with too much gold and not enough sense. They didn’t seem to notice when Essa’s eyes went wide, skittering away from Cullen as he shuffled his own stack of parchment and began studying the map before them with great diligence. She wanted him to be as mortified as she was, but she suspected he was trying not to laugh.

“Point to you,” Essa muttered to her friend.

Cassandra smiled, her dark eyes, usually so somber were sparkling with uncharacteristic mischief. Essa’s gaze narrowed. Had they been set up? She didn’t want to add Cassandra’s name to the list of people in whose teeth she needed to bash. She would hate to make the woman hurt her.

“I can take no credit, Herald,” Cassandra said, holding up her hands in a placating gesture. “We are all clearly in the Maker’s hands. Don’t you agree, Commander?”

“Most days,” Cullen replied easily.

Essa smiled to herself. Though Varric had wasted no time spinning the tale of her fall through Haven this morning, Cullen couldn’t know for certain that no one had sent word ahead to Haven after her fall. She saw the same suspicion in his eyes before he reluctantly discarded it.

“You’ll see the healers,” Cassandra repeated.

“Yes,” Essa conceded in defeat.

“And next time, immediately,” the Seeker continues. “Not after you spend the better part of the morning rubbing down horses and hauling water across the yard.”

Essa pretended to miss the glare Cullen shot her way.

“Yes, Cassandra,” Essa said in contrite singsong that had Leliana laughing.

“You know,” she began in feigned self-defense. “I spent most of my life without a two-legged mother.”

“And it would appear to be a miracle that you survived this long,” Josephine returned pertly, not looking up from the note she was making.

“Yes, I do hope your father fed that Mabari nurse of yours well every night,” Leliana added with a smile. “She has managed what a dozen of us struggle to achieve.”

Cullen chuckled and Essa shot him a sharp glance.

“Greta should probably have a shrine,” she agreed with Leliana. “Anything you would like to add, Commander?”

“Yes—No,” he stumbled into a sigh and began again. “Drills at first light tomorrow.”

“First light,” she said, shaking her head in helpless exasperation. “But one of you had better get me a decent staff.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This concludes Seeking Haven, though by no means does it conclude my and Essa's ramblings. I hope it's been as much fun for those of you who've taken the time read as it has been for me.
> 
> Chapter One for the next book Of Mages and Templars is already done. It needs a readthrough and edits, but I will post it the first part of next week. After that, I'll generally post a chapter a week (though sometimes more if I'm being terrible and spending more time playing Dragon Age than working on my novel. :) 
> 
> Thanks again for reading!


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